San Sebastian Old Town

If there is a place where tourists and locals alike come together, that is the Old Town. Walking around the Old Town is an activity that every single visitor in Donosti must carry out and, at the same time, one of the main things to do in San Sebastian.

Old Town

The Old Town is located right behind the San Sebastian city hall, in between the port of the city and the Urumea River. It is flanked at the back by the Urgull Mount. This area of San Sebastian was fortified for a long period of time in the past. Not long ago, during the construction of the underground parking of the Boulevard, some already forgotten fragments of the fortress were found and it was necessary to adapt the parking construction works in order to safeguard the wall remains, which can be seen at present inside the parking. Over the course of time, the walls disappeared to give more space to a city which was constantly expanding into the interior.

In the Old Town, we can find two of the three major churches in San Sebastian: Santa Maria Church and San Vicente Church. Apart from these two churches that are certainly worth a visit, The Old town stands out for its famous bar pintxos. It is no wonder that more and more tourists every day go to bars in Donosti with brochures and magazines about the different pintxos they can order. Its prestigious gastronomy has caused many of its bars to appear in well-regarded magazines, along with pieces of advice on which bars one should visit and which pintxos to taste.

Among all the pintxos bars you can find in the Old Town, the following ones are highly recommended:

And, what is more, you will run into many other bars where the delicious pintxos will not disappoint you for sure. Yet another visit you cannot miss out on within the Old Town area is Plaza de la Constitución (Constitution Square), or the “Consti”, as everyone calls it. It was a bullfighting arena in the past, and the numbers above each one of the windows in each house prove it. Those numbers marked the boxes inside the bullring. Finally, San Telmo museum is also worth a mention: it is an old 16th century Dominican monastery that has been recently remodelled and undoubtedly deserves a visit.